🔗 Share this article

The framework of pointlessness is reloaded in this mind-bendingly dull science fiction movie, more a screensaver than an actual film. It's a third installment to the original movie Tron from the early 80s, a movie that was mould-breaking and courageously innovative for its time in a way that eludes this film and its predecessor Tron Legacy from 2010. The new Tron film nearly comes to life just once – when Evan Peters gets a smack in the face from Gillian Anderson portraying his mum, in an traditional bit of analogue reality. This is a bit of firm parenting you might feel like administering to every producer involved in this movie, and it's sad to see the respected Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith's character being made to look so uninspired.

Plot Overview of Tron: Ares

The scenario now is that an malicious artificial intelligence company with the obviously criminal name of Dillinger has become a competitor to the VR company Encom, first established in the 80s arcade-game era by brilliant innovator Kevin Flynn's character, portrayed by Jeff Bridges. This Dillinger (originally set up by Encom's executive Ed Dillinger's role, played by David Warner) is led by the founder’s annoyingly geeky grandson Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), who has a ambitious scheme to design and create profitable things such as indestructible soldiers and tanks in the VR world and then transfer them into actual reality using a sort of 3D printer.

The problem is that no matter how intimidating, these creations crumble into dust after twenty-nine minutes. But Encom's present chief executive Eve Kim's character (Greta Lee) has discovered the MacGuffin-y “permanence code” which can maintain these entities permanently, and even keeps it on her person on a extremely basic flashdrive. So the dreadful Julian Dillinger deploys his enforcer on her: Ares the warrior, the superhuman fighter which can exit the virtual realm for 29 minutes at a time but which, in the traditional way of robots, is beginning to show signs of disobeying what he's told. Jodie Turner-Smith portrays Ares's deadpan second-in-command Athena and poor Jeff Bridges has a wooden legacy appearance in wise white robes, like a budget Jor-El on Krypton.

Character and Performance Breakdown

And Ares himself – the protagonist of the film's name – is played by Jared Leto with trendy lengthy locks, beard and subtly omniscient grin, touches that were possibly created by typing the words “incredibly irritating” into an AI human creation programme. Nobody who remembers the 90s TV classic My So-Called Life will ever find it in their hearts to be completely harsh about Jared Leto, and I was incidentally quite amused by his broad (and critically misunderstood) comic turn in Ridley Scott's film House of Gucci. But Leto is unremittingly, persistently terrible here, although his performance isn't aided by a weak storyline which is supposed to allow him to show flashes of “empathy” for Eve Kim's role and subcontract all the villainous actions to Athena's character, thus making her marginally more interesting. It is meant to be adorable when Ares the character says how he loves 1980s electronic music and that Depeche Mode are better than Mozart's compositions.

Franchise Elements and Final Impression

Consistent with the brand-identity of the franchise, there are motorcycles from the virtual underworld which whizz about the place in linear paths, conforming to the rectilinear design of antique arcade games (or indeed nightclubs); one even emits a death ray which slices a police vehicle in half. But there is zero tension or danger or human interest anywhere. This series currently appears about as urgently contemporary as an automobile CD system.